(RNS) — Politicians have a “last hurrah.” Athletes take a “victory lap.” For Billy Graham, who announced that his 2005 New York crusade would be his final one in that city, it was a “last hallelujah.”Graham, who died at age 99 on Wednesday (Feb. 21), was the nation’s most prominent religious leader for more than 50 years. He suffered from prostate cancer, fluid on the brain, deafness in one ear and a broken hip requiring the use of a walker. Yet, he pressed on with his evangelistic message.

​Like another religious icon, St. John Paul II, Graham preached sermons of faith and hope despite physical pain and an awareness that death could be near. Like Karol Wojtyla, Billy Graham was a “Lion in Winter” who did not easily surrender to the inevitable.